Chapter XXXII: The Exile's Return (7)

The story unfolded by the Sonnets, then, is this: Shakespeare had an ardent friendship, made all the livelier by the fervor of the poetic temperament, for a young man of noble birth and very great personal beauty, himself a lover of poetry, if not a poet. This youth was very much younger than Shakespeare, who was already beginning to speak of himself as past the prime of life, although he was probably not more than thirty-four. The friend of Shakespeare was almost perfect in beauty, intellect and disposition, but he had two faults: he was extremely fond of flattery (Sonnet 84), and he was over-addicted to pleasure:

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name! (95.)

Shakespeare scorned to palter with the truth--"fair, kind and true" he had called his friend--but he saw his faults with the keen eye of love, that cannot bear an imperfection in the one who should be all-perfect.

Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend; (82.)

and

I love thee in such sort,
As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report; (36.)

therefore in all love he warns him to take heed.

Such was the character of Shakespeare's friend, to whom he begins by addressing seventeen sonnets (or poems in the sonnet stanza, which is the better definition), urging him to marry. He knows the weakness of his character and the temptations that beset him, and in a strain of loving persuasion, whose theme bears great resemblance to many passages in Sidney's _Arcadia_, he beseeches him, now that he stands upon the top of happy hours,

Make thee another self for love of me.
That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

Sonnet 17 in a most beautiful manner sums up the argument and ends the subject.

The Sonnets from the 18th to the 126th are all addressed to this beloved friend, who nevertheless, early in the history of their friendship, inflicted upon the poet a cruel wrong. With the 33d Sonnet begin the references to this double treachery. It is impossible for an unprejudiced reader to interpret this and the other poems upon the same subject in any way but one. The mistress of Shakespeare, fascinated by the beauty and brilliant qualities of his friend, took advantage of the poet's absence to win that facile heart, so incapable of resisting the charms of woman and the tongue of flattery;

And when a woman woos, what woman's son
Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed? (41.)

His friend's loss was the greater to the poet, for, although he loved with passionate strength, it was against his conscience and his reason. Such a love, he says, is "enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;" "Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream."

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leadeth to this hell. (129.)

Nor does he mince matters in directly addressing her. She is a brunette, with black eyes and black hair, yet black in nothing except her deeds, which have given her an evil reputation. She has sealed false bonds of love as often as he, and is twice forsworn, having deceived both her husband and her lover. She is as cruel as if she had that transcendent beauty which in reality she only possesses in his doting eyes. He knows that her heart is "a bay where all men ride," and yet love persuades him to believe her true.

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

She is his "worser spirit," tempting him to ill--his "false plague," whom he knows to be "as black as hell, as dark as night," though he has sworn her fair and true. His friend's name is Will also, and Sonnets 135, 136 contain a play upon their names:

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy "Will,"
And "Will" to boot, and "Will" in overplus.

Only love my name, he says to her, and then you will still love me, for _my_ name too is "Will."

Such are the three actors in this tragedy of sin and sorrow and remorse; and the more we read these wonderful poems, and perceive the intense passion that throbs through them, the nearer we seem to get to the great heart of Shakespeare, the real inner life of that man of whose outer personality we know so little. We see him wounded to the quick by his dearest friend, yet weighing the sin of that friend in the balance of divinest mercy as he acknowledges the strength of the temptation, and, while he does not extenuate the sin, extends a loving pardon to the sinner. He knows weakness of his own soul: he himself struggles in the toils of an unworthy passion, which his reason abhors while his heart is led captive. His is the battle and the defeat: who is he that he should judge with indignant virtue the failing of another?--

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury. (40.)

He pardons the penitent as freely as only so great and magnanimous a soul can, but gently reminds him that "though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:"

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross. (34.)

Hereafter we two must be twain, the poet says, although our undivided loves are one, for fear thy good report suffer, which is to me as my own. Do not even remember me after I am dead, if that remembrance cause you any sorrow, nor rehearse my poor name, but let your love decay with my life;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

Such is the story of the Sonnets, the saddest of all stories, as it comes to us from the simple and unbiased reading of the series as it stands, without alteration or transposition. The meaning is sufficiently obvious without making any change, although, judging from the purely eulogistic character of some of the first series of the Sonnets, and the purely reflective style of others, it seems probable that those which are more or less reproachful in tone may belong together, nearer the second series. Still, even to this rearrangement there are objections when we consider the alternations of feeling and the different conditions that must have affected the poet during the space of time covered by these poems. In the 104th Sonnet three years are mentioned as having elapsed since the friends first met, and the time covered by the whole series was probably still longer. Conjectural evidence points to William Herbert as the person to whom the Sonnets are addressed. His name, his age, his beauty, his rank, all agree with Shakespeare's description. As for the earl of Southampton, the poet's early patron, to whom the _Venus and Adonis_ and the _Lucrece_ are dedicated, his name was Henry; he was but nine years younger than Shakespeare, and therefore not likely to have been called by him "a sweet boy;" he was a remarkably plain man, instead of an Adonis, and noted, not for his devotion to women in general, but for his ardent attachment to Mistress Elizabeth Vernon, whom he married secretly, in spite of the queen's opposition, in 1598. Now, the earliest mention that we have of Shakespeare's poems is when Meres speaks of "his sugared sonnets among his private friends." This was in 1598, and, as Hallam and other critics have argued, is probably a reference to earlier sonnets which have been lost, not to those published in 1609. It was in 1598 that William Herbert, a brilliant and fascinating young man, addicted to pleasure and susceptible to flattery, but strongly disinclined to marriage, came up to London to live, having visited the metropolis during the previous year.

As for Lady Rich, besides the objections already urged on the score of her personal appearance and her age, Shakespeare would never have dared to speak of a reigning beauty of the court in the words of Sonnets 137, 144, 152. In fact, Mr. Massey's whole argument upon this head is based upon his assertion that the poems are dramatic and not personal.

Mr. Massey's conviction that Marlowe is the rival poet of whose "great verse" Shakespeare was jealous depends upon Southampton, and not Herbert, being acknowledged to be the friend addressed, for Marlowe died in 1593, when Herbert was but thirteen years old, and five years before we have the first mention of Shakespeare as a writer of sonnets. Certainly, a writer who had died five years before we find any mention of the Sonnets can hardly be the living poet of whom Shakespeare distinctly speaks in Sonnets 80 and 86. Also in Sonnet 82 he makes mention of the "dedicated words" this rival addresses to his friend. Now, we have no evidence that Marlowe ever dedicated anything to Southampton, although Mr. Massey tries to bolster up a desperate case by saying that "there is nothing improbable in supposing that Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_ was intended to be dedicated to Southampton" had the poet lived to finish it!

A stronger chain of evidence (still conjectural, it must be remembered) points to Ben Jonson as this rival poet. His _Epigrams_, which contain a eulogy upon Pembroke, and his _Catiline_, were both dedicated to this earl, although neither of them was published till after the Sonnets. We find the earl of Pembroke's name among the actors in Ben Jonson's masques, and Falkland's eclogue testifies to their intimacy. And in the 80th Sonnet, Shakespeare uses the same comparison of himself and his rival, to two ships of different bulk, which Fuller used to describe Shakespeare and Ben Jonson as they appeared at the Mermaid Tavern.

As for the name of the false woman who ensnared two such noble hearts, it is lost for ever, let us hope, in a deserved oblivion. The scanty data that we have given here are about all that can be accepted without wrenching history and poetry from their proper sphere. But so long as the spirit is more than the letter, so long will the Sonnets of Shakespeare be read by all true lovers of true poetry, whether their historical significance ever be known or not. They are the saddest and the sweetest story of friendship that we have in all literature; and while one faithful friend remains possessed of that fine wit that can "hear with eyes what silent love hath writ," his heart will beat in answer to the perfect love of the greatest of all poets and the noblest of all friends.

KATE HILLARD.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

ARTISTS' MODELS IN ROME.

Some visitors to the Eternal City leave it without having found time to see this one of its wonders, while others are driven by the sad inelasticity of the hours to leave a different class of objects for "another time." But it may be safely asserted that none who have been at Rome for even twenty-four hours ever left it without having had their attention forcibly arrested by the groups of painters' and sculptors' models--the former mainly--who haunt the upper part of the great steps that lead up from the Piazza di Spagna to the Trinità di Monti, and perhaps even more specially the corner where the Via Sistina falls into the Piazza Barberini. But very few probably have asked for, and fewer still obtained, information as to who and what these people are, and whence they come. Yet to an attentive observer many points about the appearance of these groups must suggest that a curious interest might attach itself to the reply to such questions. There are sights in Rome of grander and greater interest, but there is nothing in all the famous centre of the Catholic world more distinctively, essentially and exclusively Roman, more unlike anything that is seen elsewhere, more instinct with _couleur locale_, than these singularly picturesque groups of nomads.

Let us, then, take a stroll among them, starting from that bright centre of the foreigners' quarter of Rome, the Piazza di Spagna. It is a brilliant January day, and, we will say, ten o'clock in the morning. In the Via Babuino and the neighboring streets, which the sun has not yet visited, the morning cold is a little sharp. _Matutina parum cautos jam frigora mordent_. But the magnificent flight of the great stair--there are properly eleven flights, divided by as many spacious and handsomely balustraded landing-places, each flight consisting of twelve steps, and all of white marble--with its southern exposure has almost the temperature of a hothouse. There are two or three beggars basking in the sunshine near the bottom of the steps. But our models do not consort with these. Not only are they not beggars, but they belong to a different caste and a different race. We leisurely saunter up the huge stair, pausing at each landing-place to turn and enjoy the view over the city, and the gradually rising luminous haze around the cupola of St. Peter's, and the heights of Monte Mario clear against the brilliant blue sky. It is not till we are at the topmost flight that we come upon the objects of our ramble. There we fall in with a group of them, consisting perhaps of three or four girls, as many children, a man in the prime of life, and an aged patriarch. There is not the smallest possibility that we should pass them unobserved. They are far too remarkable and too unlike anything else around us. Even those who have no eye for the specialties of type which characterize the human countenance will not fail to be struck by the peculiarities of the costume of the group of figures before us. At the first glance the eye is caught by the quantity of bright color in their dresses. The older women wear the picturesque white, flatly-folded linen cloth on their heads which is the usual dress of the _contadine_ women in the neighborhood of Rome. The younger have their hair ornamented with some huge filagree pin or other device of a fashion which proclaims itself to the most unskilled eye as that of some two or three hundred years ago. All have light bodices of bright blue or red stuff laced in front, and short petticoats of some equally bright color, not falling below the ankle. But the most singular portion of the costume is the universally-worn apron. It consists of a piece of very stout and coarsely-woven wool of the brightest blue, green or yellow, about twenty inches broad by thirty-three in length, across which, near the top and near the bottom, run two stripes, each about eight inches wide, of hand-worked embroidery of the strangest, old-world-looking patterns and the most brilliant colors. These things are manufactured by the peasantry of the hill-country in the neighborhood of San Germano, who grow, shear, spin, weave, dye and embroider the wool themselves. And being barbarously unsophisticated by any adulteration of cotton, and in no wise stinted in the quantity of material, they are wonderfully strong and enduring. The most remarkable thing about them, however, is the unerring instinct with which these uneducated manufacturers harmonize the most audaciously violent contrasts of brilliant color. It is not too much to assert that they are _never_ at fault in this respect. So much is this the case, and so truly artistic is this homely peasant manufacture, that there is hardly a painter's studio in Rome in which two or three of these richly colored apron-cloths may not be seen covering a sofa or thrown over the back of a chair. A great part of the singularly picturesque and striking appearance of the group of figures we are speaking of is due to the universal use of these aprons by the women. The men also affect an unusually large amount of bright color in their costume. The waistcoat is almost always scarlet; the velveteen jacket or short coat generally blue; the breeches sometimes the same, but often of bright yellow leather, and the stockings a lighter blue. The men often wear a long cloak reaching to the heels, always hanging open in front, and generally lined with bright green baize. They generally, too, have some bright-colored ribbons around their high-peaked, conical felt hats. But I must not forget to mention the costume of the children. It consists of an exact copy in miniature of that of their elders; and the inconceivable quaintness and queer old-world look produced is not to be imagined by those who have never witnessed it. Fancy a little imp of six or seven years old dressed in little blue jacket, bright-yellow leather breeches, blue stockings, sheepskin sandals on his little bits of feet, and long bright flaxen curls streaming down from under a gayly-ribboned brigand's hat!

But if the first glance is given to this singularity of costume, the second will not fail to take cognizance of the remarkable beauty of feature to be observed in almost every individual of this race of models. The men are well grown, almost invariably wear their black hair streaming over their shoulders, and have generally fine eyes and picturesquely colored, swarthy red faces. But the beauty of the girls is in almost every case something quite extraordinary; and the same may be said of the children. The next thing which the closeness of observation this unusual degree of beauty is calculated to attract will reveal to the observer is that all these singularly lovely faces are remarkably like each other, and at the same time remarkably unlike any of the faces around them. There is often much beauty among the Roman women of the lower classes, but it is of an essentially different type. The Roman beauty is generally large in stature and ample in development, with features whose tendency to heaviness needs the majestic and Juno-like style of beauty which the Roman women so frequently have to redeem them. But the countenances of the women of whom we have been speaking have nothing at all of this. The features are small, delicately cut, the form of face generally short, rather than tending to oval, being in this respect also in marked contrast with the ordinary Roman type. There is a type of face well known to most English eyes, though less so, I take it, to those on the western side of the Atlantic, which is strangely recalled to the memory by these model-girls; and that is the gypsy type. There is the same Oriental look about them, the same brilliancy of dark eyes under dark low brows, the same delicately-cut noses and full yet finely-chiseled lips. They have also almost invariably the same wondrous wealth of long raven black tresses, glossy but not fine. The complexions are fresher, more delicate, and with more of bloom, than is often seen among the gypsies; and this is the principal difference between the two types. There is also another point of similarity, which, if the accounts of Eastern travelers may be accepted, seems also to point to an Oriental origin. I allude to the singular gracefulness of "pose" which is observable in these people, among the men and women alike. There they stand and lounge, or sit propped, half recumbent, against a balustrade in the sun, in all sorts of attitudes, but in all they are graceful. There is that indefinable simplicity and ease in the natural movement and disposition of their limbs which tuition can never, and birth in the purple can so rarely, enable a European to assume. It may perhaps be supposed that the exigencies of their profession have not been without influence in producing the effect I am speaking of. But I do not think that such is the case. In the young and the old, in the children even, the same thing is observable; and the exceeding difficulty of teaching it may be accepted, I think, as a guarantee that it has not been taught in the case of creatures so unteachable as these half-wild sons and daughters of Nature.

Now, if these people, who for generations past have exercised the profession of artists' models in Rome, do really belong to a race apart from the inhabitants of the district around Rome, as I think cannot be doubted by any one who has carefully observed them, the question suggests itself, Who and what are they, and whence do they come? Fortunately, we are not unprovided with an answer, and the answer is rather a curious one. If the excursionist from Rome to Tivoli will extend his ramble a little way among the Sabine Mountains which lie behind it, up the valley through which the Teverone--the _præceps Anio_ of Horace--runs down into the Campagna, he will see on his right hand, when he has left Tivoli about ten miles behind him, a most romantically situated little town on the summit of a conically shaped mountain. The name of it is Saracinesco, and its story is as curious as its situation. It is said--and the tradition has every appearance of truth--that the town was founded by a body of Saracens after their defeat by Berengarius in the ninth century. The spot is just such as might have been selected for such a purpose. It is difficult of access to an extraordinary degree, and it is said to be no less than two thousand five hundred feet above the stream which flows at the base of the rocky hill on which it is built. Tradition, however, is not the only testimony to the truth of this account of the origin of the strangely placed little town, for in many cases the inhabitants have preserved their old Arabic names. It is from this strange eyrie of Saracinesco that our picturesque and handsome friends of the Piazzi di Spagna descend to seek a living at Rome from the profession which they have followed for generations of artists' models. And this is the explanation of the singular sameness of beautiful feature, the utterly un-Roman type, the sharply-cut features, and the admirable grace of movement and of attitude which characterize these denizens of the steps--if of the steppes no longer.

What a life they lead! From early morn to dewy eve there they lounge, in every sort of restful attitude, basking in the sun, with nothing on earth to occupy mind or body save an eternal clatter. On what subjects, who shall say or attempt to guess? Every now and then one of the tribe is hired by an artist to go and _pose_ for a Judith, a Lucretia, a Venus, as the case may be. Some are wanted for an arm, some for a hand, some for a brow, some for a leg, some for a bust. Some one may have a special gift for personating an ancient Roman, and another exactly assume the saintly look of a Madonna or the smile and expression of a Venus. Their several and special gifts and capacities are all well known in the world of their patrons, and special reputations are made in the art-world accordingly. It is a strange life: not probably conducive to a high development of intellectual and moral excellence, but very much so to the picturesque peopling of the most magnificent flight of stairs in Christendom.

T. A. T.

FAUST IN POLAND.

Nowhere do we see the genuine soul and character of a people so distinctly as in its myths, legends, popular songs and traditions. They reflect faithfully, though--perhaps we should say, _because_--unconsciously, the deeds, aspirations and beliefs of the earlier ages, and not only afford to our own precious material for philological and ethnological study, but still exert, in many instances at least, considerable influence over the ideas and feelings of men. The Faust legend will never lose its mysterious fascination: many poets have felt it, but Goethe's insight penetrated all its depth of meaning, and his marvelous poem is for us the supreme expression of it.

But it is interesting to find the same legend in Poland, with characteristic variations from the German conception, illustrative of the hospitality and chivalry and the dominant influence of woman which are such marked features in Polish history. Twardowsky (the Doctor Faustus of Poland) lived in the sixteenth century, in the time of Sigismund Augustus. He studied at the University of Cracow, rose to the rank of doctor, and devoted himself especially to chemistry and physics, having a secret laboratory in a vast cavern of Mount Krzemionki. Science in those days was regarded as intimately associated with the black arts, and it was not surprising that Twardowsky's contemporaries added the title of sorcerer to those of doctor and professor, supposed he had made an alliance with Satan, and fancied an army of demons always waiting to do his bidding. All this did not prevent his enjoyment of the king's favor. Sigismund had married, against his mother's wish, Barbara Radziwill, the beautiful daughter of a Polish magnate. The nobles, probably influenced by Bona, the mother of the king, demanded that Barbara should be repudiated: he indignantly refused, and shortly afterward she was poisoned. The grief and rage of Sigismund were without bounds: he exiled his mother, wore black all the rest of his life, and had the apartments of his palace hung with it. His melancholy gave him new interest in the occult sciences, and he became more than ever intimate with Twardowsky, sometimes visiting him in his cavern, sometimes receiving him secretly in his palace. At first, he was satisfied with the chemical experiments which the populace regarded as supernatural, but after a while he urgently desired Twardowsky to produce for him a vision of Barbara. Twardowsky appointed a night for the exhibition of his skill, and after drawing a magic circle and pronouncing some mysterious words, he called Barbara thrice by name, and she appeared--not as a spectre risen from the tomb, but in all the beauty and freshness which had been the king's delight. He fainted at the sight, and his regard for the magician increased greatly. But one fatal evening he found the door of the cavern shut. Twardowsky, not expecting him, was not there. After some delay the door was opened by a beautiful young woman. "Barbara!" exclaimed Sigismund. "Barbara is my name, but I am alive, not dead," was her reply. Twardowsky's device was now exposed. He had created an illusion for the satisfaction of Sigismund by employing this substitute for his lost Barbara. She was a girl named Barbara Gisemka, whom Twardowsky had rescued from the hands of a furious mob, had concealed in his cavern, and initiated into the sciences to which he devoted himself. She became his adept and his mistress. But the king, furious at the imposition which had been practiced upon him, and desirous of making this beautiful creature his own, had Twardowsky murdered, and gave out that the devil had carried him off. Barbara Gisemka acquired immense influence over the mind of her royal lover, which lasted while he lived. When he was ill she suffered no physician to approach him, and was with him when he died in 1572.

So much for history. Tradition has transformed Twardowsky into a gay and brilliant gentleman, who, in order to gain all the pleasures of life, sold his soul to the devil, engaging on his honor to give it up to him whenever he (the devil) should enter the city of Rome. Twardowsky now enjoyed to the full his new power, reveling in luxury himself, and lavishing gifts and banquets on his friends. The populace also shared his generosity--all the more, too, from the strange manner of it. On one occasion, we are told, he pierced three holes in a shoemaker's nose with his own awl, and caused a tun of brandy to flow from it for the refreshment of the crowd. One day he was informed that a stranger who was at the inn called the "City of Rome" wished to see him. He went at once to the place with no misgivings, but on his arrival there found the devil, who had come to claim the fulfillment of the contract. Provoked at the quibble, he resolved to employ a ruse himself, and just as the devil was about to take possession of him he seized the infant child of the innkeeper from its cradle and held it up before him, its innocence being a sure defence against Satan's power. He, however, demanded what had become of his plighted word. The honor of the Polish gentleman could not resist this appeal. He put down the child and rose into the air with Satan. But while they were still hovering over Cracow the sound of church-bells awoke in Twardowsky's recollection a hymn to the Virgin, which he forthwith sang, and the devil could hold him no longer. Twardowsky, however, could not get down again, but remains suspended in the air, only receiving news from the earth by means of a spider which happened to be on the tail of his coat, and which occasionally spins a thread and goes down, for a while, returning with whatever it may have picked up for his information and amusement.

No Polish story would be complete without a woman, and so we find that Twardowsky had a wife, beautiful, witty and imperious, with all the fascinations universally conceded to the Polish women. Madame Twardowsky is said to have ruled her husband just as he ruled the devil during the time of that personage's subjection; and there is a second version of the story which makes her too much for Satan himself. According to this account, Twardowsky was entertaining a number of friends at the "City of Rome," when suddenly the devil appeared. While Twardowsky, to gain time, was reading over the compact, his wife, looking over his shoulder, suddenly laughed, and addressing the devil, told him there were still three conditions for him to fulfill, on failure of which the parchment should be torn up, and asked whether she might impose them. The devil politely replied in the affirmative. "Here, then," said she, "see this horse painted on the wall of the inn: I wish to mount him, and you must make me a whip of sand and a staple of walnuts." The devil bowed, and in a moment the horse was prancing before their eyes. The lady now had a large tub of holy water brought in, and invited the devil, as his second task, to plunge into it and refresh his weary limbs. He coughed, shivered, then went in resolutely, coming out again as quickly as possible, and shaking himself well. "The third task will be a pleasant one," said the lady with her most bewitching smile: "The first year my husband passes in hell you shall spend with me, swearing to me love, fidelity and implicit obedience. Will you?" The devil rushed toward the door, but she was too quick for him, and succeeded in locking it and putting the key into her pocket. Satan, resolved to escape from the servitude in store for him, could only do so by going through the keyhole, which has been black ever since.

E. C. R.

A LETTER FROM HAVANA.

HAVANA, Feb. 14, 1875.

It is not a very long sail from home to Cuba--you pass into the Bay of Havana on the morning of the fifth day, if you have luck--but the sky and land you left behind at this wintry season at home are very different from those you find on arriving here. It is a great change in so short a time from the dun-colored shore and the frozen river to the waving verdure of the Cuban coast and the sparkling blue and white of the water. We made the land before daylight, and, the rules forbidding us to enter the harbor till sunrise, we bobbed up and down for two or three hours a mile or so outside of the Moro Castle, which guards the narrow entrance to Havana. The moon was so brilliant that we did not have to wait for day to enjoy the scene before us: in fact, it could not have been improved by the sun. The fortress of Moro crouches on a bed of rock, rearing a tall lighthouse aloft. Its Moorish turrets have a soft rounded outline, and the undulations of the shore blend with the masonry of the castle; only a sharp retiring angle here and there gives an occasional glimpse of a grim purpose. When the Moro light is put out, ships in the offing may enter the bay. The mouth of the harbor is not more than half a mile wide, and on the shore opposite to the Moro the town of Havana comes down to the water's edge, withdrawing up the bay on one hand, and up the sea-coast on the other. A pilot is not necessary except for the perquisites of office, but one comes on board, and with anxious countenance directs the ship straight on through clear water for a mile, when the anchor is dropped.

Just as day breaks on the high ground on the Moro shore, and the growing light brings houses and trees and ships into relief, with all their rich variety of color, the scene is memorable and full of beauty. On the green slope behind the castle, while the outline of the tropical vegetation is only stealing into view, there is hid, and yet visible, a long, low building of yellow columns, blue facade, brown gables and red tiles: if you shut out the rest of the landscape with your hands, you would say it was a picture by Fortuny. The expanse of the bay is fine, and the large fleet at anchor furnishes it but thinly. Townward, as the sun's rays begin to dissipate the brown shadows and define shape and color, the city sparkles like a gorgeous mosaic; but in another half hour, when the sun is higher, the hazy softness has departed and the city is ablaze with light, so that your eyes can scarcely look at it. Then, if you have seen it earlier, it loses its charm.

I was jealous of Havana from what I had heard and read of it: if the shore-line, and the entrance, and the bay, and the scene were finer than Rio, I was prepared to be angry; but Rio is grand and Havana is pretty, so that one may like both and not divide his allegiance. A patchwork of good pictures in the Moorish vein of town, and shore, and water would reproduce, and yet not copy, all that Havana has to offer; but there is not a picture in the world that aspires to the grandeur of Rio. But I won't deny the sparkle and brilliancy of Havana. At this moment the sky is of a perfect "Himmel-blau." I can see from my window, near the roof, the rich, harmonious Moorish blending of varied colors in the houses; and beyond these "the white feet of the wind shine along the sea." A ship with all sail set is coming into port, the white-capped waves rolling her along before the stiff sea-breeze. Wind is the bane of the place. It sets in to blow, as the sailors say, soon after daylight nine days in ten, and blows all day, and sometimes far into the night. It is not always the soft, perennial zephyr of tradition, but often chill and raw, and then there is no escape from it except to shut yourself in your room; and that means hermetically sealing, for when you close a window here you close a shutter, and thus, if you shut out the breeze, you shut the light out also. The doors and windows are not meant to exclude the air, and so when the breeze gets on a frolic it whirls up stairs and down--goeth, in fact, where it listeth; and sometimes one feels it going through him like a knife.

The houses are built in one width of rooms round a hollow square; consequently, when you put your boots out you put them out of doors. In the midst of the house, with the sky overhead, the umbrageous palm tree and banana spread their broad leaves. The rooms are high and white, with little furniture, and no curtains, with open ceiling of painted rafters, and iron gratings, like a prison's bars, shutting out the street in the front of the house. Behind these gratings the passer-by may see the Cuban family arranged in two prim rows of arm-chairs _vis-à-vis_, or gathered about the bars as if looking for some means of escape. Occasionally now in some of the better quarters a child of either sex, but black as night, disports itself in full view, "covered by the darkness only." There is an infinite variety of opinion in regard to the clothing necessary to comfort here. I have often found a light overcoat comfortable, but there is a tribe or clan from some Spanish province whose boast it is to wear coat nor vest by day or night. The representatives of the various provinces maintain their individuality here, and preserve for festive occasions the costumes which characterize them in Spain. Some of these are very rich, and many of the men, especially of the lower orders, being stalwart and handsome, their gala appearance is decidedly striking. In the fête in honor of Alfonso XII. there were some beautiful groups of men, women and children in Spanish costumes, dancing in the procession with silk emblems and flower wreaths, and singing provincial songs. Others were mounted on the splendid Andalusian horses, which make one's mouth water with desire to ride them. They are as beautiful as Fromentin and Gérôme have painted them--such eyes and nostrils, and such action! It has taken centuries to produce him, but at last there is a saddle-horse: if only for parade occasions, that is no matter. He is perfect in his kind. The Arab keeps his horse in his tent, but the Cuban keeps his in his house. We should say that the horse-owning Cuban sleeps over a stable, but no doubt to his mind his stable is merely under his room. A rich gentleman in town has encased his horses in a beautiful drawing-room of cedar and satin-wood, and it is rather pleasant than otherwise to pass through it on the way to the other apartments.

The houses of Havana are low; the streets are narrow; the sidewalks ditto: there is an occasional plaza of broad, white glare, which must be intolerable in summer-time. The Prado has trees which are rather Dutch than tropical; and the Paseo, where the driving is, is quite a fine avenue. This afternoon, though it is Lent, the Carnival will rage there. Some people go in masks, but not many; and there are no confetti. It is mainly a parade--rich people turning out in their best, poor people making light of their poverty: the rich gorgeous in apparel, and splendid in equipage, the poor arrayed in some gay, inexpensive motley, and crowded into miserable vehicles. The particolored costumes give an aspect of brightness to the street; but it is a solemn sight to see four Cuban women, of the middle age, drawn by a four-in-hand, arrayed in full ball-dress, powdered and bejeweled, and passing in review of admiring mankind.

The ugliness of the women amounts to a vice, and is unredeemed by any quality such as sometimes palliates plainness of features. I have cried aloud for the beautiful Cuban, but in vain. I am assured that she exists, am told, "My dear fellow, you never made a greater mistake in your life," am poohpoohed in various ways; but I cannot find her. I hear it said that owing to the political chaos here she has retired from public view, but it is not denied that she will go to the Carnival and the opera. I was warned not to expect her at the ball in Alfonso's honor at the Spanish Club, and certainly it was a timely warning. Fancy a long hall of colored marble, pillars running the length of it forming arcades; balconies on both sides hanging over the streets, and full of young men smoking cigarettes; men parading up and down the hall and quizzing the women, who were all seated--two rows of them, hundreds all together--seriously contemplating the male procession: enameled, powdered, attired in the wealth of the Indies, saying nothing, doing nothing, not smiling, not blinking, just sitting there, an awful array of hideousness. After the band struck up and the dancing began, I remained long enough to lose in the music the horrible impression of, the opening scene, and then hurried home. At the opera and the Carnival it is not so positively unendurable, but a handsome face, or a pretty face, or even an intelligent, expressive face, I have not yet seen in a woman in Havana; and at this season of the year, if ever, Havana is Cuba. I don't condemn them--I merely give my luck.

The town is of course full of Spanish military and their accessories, civil functionaries who are all Spanish, money-makers, adventurers, shoddy. The Spanish army is at "the front," posted across or partly across the island on a sort of strong picket-line, fortified by block-houses, whence watch is kept on the movements of the insurgents, who seem to come and go as they please in the Spanish front, and cross the lines with impunity. The Spanish hold the whole seaboard, all important towns and villages, hold the insurgents practically in check, so far as the fertile region of the island is concerned, and from year to year keep military matters just about in _statu quo_. The insurgents dwell in the wildest portion of the island, often in almost impenetrable woods, living the life of savages, and depending on the bounty of Nature for their daily bread.

So the war lingers. It is not what we would call a war: it is a condition of armed hostility. It is conducted almost wholly at the expense of Spain in _men_, wholly at the expense of Cuba in _money_. The Cuban volunteers are a home-guard, but the purse of the Cubans is open. Spain is not loath to dip into it, and taxation for carrying on the government and the war has become very onerous--dreadfully so, in fact, though I believe that the Cubans do not realize it so fully as strangers do. The government is impoverished; the war makes no progress; what becomes of the enormous revenue derived from the taxes? A rich planter said to me dryly, "They are ignorant men: they make mistakes in applying it." Hard things are openly said of all Spanish officials; and all officials, from the captain-general to the harbor pilot, are Spanish. Startling things are heard here every day in political and military discussions. The people think in classes: there is the Spanish view, the Creole view, the foreign view--none very dispassionate, and none very accurate. There is no accepted basis of fact for anything: nobody believes anybody else, and truth here lies in a _very_ deep well. But one thing else is clear. Cuba, so gifted by Nature, is being despoiled by man; and what ought to be a garden will become overgrown with weeds if there is not a change of fortune. There is taxation without representation under an iron despotism: there is an army without war, and the people look on. It is not necessary to find any new means of going to the bad at a gallop. The rich give practical support to the Spanish, and moral support to the insurrection; but if the insurrection should triumph, I can't see how it will benefit the Creole Cubans of property. I think ideas here are confused on the subject, and while they are giving hearty encouragement to neither cause, between the two they are sure to be utterly ruined.

I have spent a week in all on sugar plantations in the interior. I was delightfully entertained, and reveled in the luxury of soft air and out-of-door life. I was on horseback a good deal, riding one of the shuffling little animals they have here, whose gait is so easy that it doesn't amount to motion. The crops are to a great extent still uncut; the green cane, which looks like our broom-corn at a distance, waves in the winds as far as the eye can reach. The country is level, but has a frame of mountain-land. The woods are festooned with air-plants and parasites; palm trees dot the landscape in every direction or run in splendid avenues, sometimes in double rows, alternating with the round, full mamey tree, whose deep green foliage brings into fine relief the white stalk of the palm. The breeze rustles through the broad plantations of bananas and sways the orange groves. The gardens are rich in flowers of brilliant hues. The fields swarm with negroes and ox-carts; the ponderous machinery of the boiling-houses maintains a steady hum; the picturesque buildings are all touched with Fortuny-like tints: there is much to see and much to tell of, but I must have some regard for your patience. I have not finished, but I must stop.

F. C. N.

FRENCH SLANG.

Reading the slang of a language is much like seeing the said language in its intellectual shirt-sleeves, off duty and taking its ease: one feels sure of detecting some essential characteristics of the people who speak it, and one turns over the pages of a slang dictionary expecting to recognize through its corruption and perversions the real nature of the people who have created it. French slang is no exception to this, theory: the two hundred and thirty double-columned pages of M. Larcher's _Dictionnaire historique, etymologique et anecdotique de l'argot parisien_ tell us that the two grand sources and inspirations of our American slang are entirely wanting: there is not a humorous word or phrase from beginning to end; and hardly an instance of that incongruous exaggeration which is so salient a picture of our best-known and most original slang phrases. But, on the other hand, there is satire keen and fine on every page, a reckless, devil-may-care gayety, and throughout that mocking spirit which is so essentially French, making game alike of its own pain and that of others, and jeering always at the sight of an altar, never mind what may chance to be thereon, whether its own sacred things or those of others. Half the words in the book are quaint, grotesque phrasings of two ideas--ideas which most people on our side of the water are hardly inclined to joke about: one is the idea of death, and the other the frailty or falseness of women. One is specially struck by the wealth of words and the sameness of ideas, and, above all, by the quickwittedness that must belong to the people who can all catch a verbal allusion or suggestion as Anglo-Saxons might a plump, square hit. Sometimes a little unconscious pathos mingles with the mocking vein, for courage is moving when it is light-hearted. When a Frenchman tells you he has eaten nothing for two days, he adds, "Ça, ce n'est pas drôle" ("Now, that's no joke"). "Coeur d'artichaut" (a heart like an artichoke) is a felicitous expression for a person who has a succession of caprices and short-lived fancies; and there is something to the point in the satire which calls a surgical instrument "baume d'acier" (steel balm), or in the saying which mocks the credulous faith many people vaguely have in the efficacy of mineral waters: "Croyez cela et buvez de l'eau" (Believe that and drink water). There is something desperately significant in a language in which the lover who supports, protects and is deceived is called "le dessus," and the one who is favored at his expense "le dessous;" while the words "une femme," a woman, without qualification, are identical with frailty, and virtue, being the exception, demands an adjective to identify and proclaim it.

But there is something fine in the old French slang for the beginning of a war: "La danse va commencer" (The dance is about to begin, or the ball to open), and this dates from time immemorial: fighting has always been fun to Frenchmen. And there is something better still in the phrase which has become an official one, and has a proper technical meaning, with which the orders of a naval officer when sent on a difficult or dangerous expedition always end. "Debrouillez vous," meaning simply "Come well out of it." There must be stuff in men who can be trusted to always extricate themselves from a tight place with credit to their flag without more words than that simple exhortation. But one cannot say much for the morality of a country where, when any one says "la muette" (the dumb one), it is understood to mean conscience.

The instances are rare of resemblance between our slang phrases and theirs. Once in a while such a phrase as "Asseyezvous dessus" (literally, Sit on him) strikes one; but seldom. French slang teems with words that caricature and satirize personal defects, of which many are brutally coarse and not quotable. A comical expression for a sumptuous meal is a "Balthazar" (Belshazzar); and an unpleasant one for a coffin is a "boite a dominos" (a box of dominoes); a droll phrase for a plagiarist is "demarqueur de linge" (some one who alters the marking of another's linen). An interesting fact for the notice of physiologists is that when the officers of the engineer corps lose a comrade from insanity, they say, "Il s'est passé au dixième," in allusion to the fact that their loss in numbers from this cause amounts to practical decimation. This is attributed to the close study of the exact sciences. Under "femme du demi-monde" we find the origin of the phrase as created by A. Dumas fils: "Femme née dans un monde distingué, dont elle conserve les manières sans en respecter les lois" ("a woman belonging by birth to the upper class, the manners of which she retains, without respecting its laws"); but the present meaning is quite different from this, the phrase being now used as a euphuistic designation of a disreputable woman. French slang is saturated with irreverence. A common term for an emaciated-looking man is to call him an "ecce homo," and a "grippe Jésus" is thieves' slang for a gendarme.

The author of this dictionary evidently sympathizes with modern romanticists and light literature in general, for we find "académicien" defined as "littérateur suranné." One is always inclined to suspect sour grapes of giving the flavor to French sarcasm concerning the Academy, and is reminded of Piron's epigram in the shape of his own epitaph:

Ci git Piron qui ne fut rien,
Pas même académicien.

He wrote it, however, after his failure to obtain one of the much-coveted arm-chairs.

Our national vanity might be flattered by hearing that the phrase "L'oeil Américain" is used to describe an eye whose piercing vision is escaped by nothing, were we not told that it dates from the translation of Cooper's Leatherstocking tales into French, and has no reference, as "Natty Bumpo" would say, to "_white_ gifts."

We find long, elaborate definitions of those much-disputed words, "chic," "cachet" and "chien," which, after all has been said, seem to take their meaning from the intention of those who use them and the perception of those who hear. "Chocnoso" is a delightfully expressive and absurd onomatopeic word to describe what is brilliant, startling and remarkable. The most striking feature of this elaborate book is that, although it contains almost words enough to constitute the vocabulary of a miniature language, yet the vast majority of these words would be as unintelligible to an educated Frenchman as to an Englishman. The bulk of French slang is never heard by the ears of educated people nor uttered by their lips: it circulates among the classes which create it; and the size of this dictionary is therefore not necessarily appalling to a Frenchman's eyes: it does not represent the corruption of the language, because slang does not taint the speech of those classes who control and make the standard speech and literature of the nation. If a dictionary of English slang were published now, how many young ladies and gentlemen of the educated classes, either in England or America, could profess honest and absolute ignorance of the meaning of most of the words? The answer to this question makes the moral of this paper.

F. A.

NOTES.